


Tall Tales

by StarlingGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlingGirl/pseuds/StarlingGirl
Summary: Standing on Platform 9 and ¾, it's obvious that summer has brought some changes: Remus has grown. James has grown. Peter has grown. Sirius... hasn't. He's not altogether happy about it.Remus thinks he might get over it in a week or so.Remus is wrong.





	Tall Tales

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the idea of Sirius being the shortest Marauder. This started off purely as a chance to use That One Joke from That 70s Show that I've always associated with Sirius (why is the dog on the counter/he likes to feel tall) and it spiralled, somewhat. Enjoy.

“You’ve _grown._ ”

No ‘hello, Remus’, or ‘how were the hols, Remus’. Just this accusation, sitting somewhere between offended and dumbfounded, and Sirius’ expression all loose with shock and affront. As if Remus had decided to extend himself an inch and a half over the summer purely to spite him.

Remus _has_ grown, though. He can’t deny that. His socks are bared between shoe and trouser, freckled wrists peeking out from frayed cuffs. He’s all limb, now, and looks even skinnier than he had before. Under his shirt, the ladder of his ribs is clearly visible. _Like a bundle of twigs,_ his mum had said to him, and there’d been worry in her voice.

The thought of seeing Mrs. Potter on the platform with James is an alarming one. She’s always been determined to feed him up, and he’s somewhat concerned that if she sees him now, she won’t let him on the train. He’ll miss the first week of lessons, sitting in her kitchen, eating until there’s some meat on his bones.

“Have you considered,” Remus replies, slow with false thoughtfulness, “that you’ve just shrunk?”

Looking down at his friend—actually down, pressed close by the crowd as they are, head tipped forward to meet Sirius’ eyes—Remus could well believe it. But the frown settling across his Sirius’ brow is, more-or-less, at the same height as it would have been at the beginning of the summer. It’s only Remus’ perspective that’s changed.

“Well, it’s awfully selfish of you,” Sirius says. “What are the rest of us supposed to do with you? You’ll barely fit through doorways. We’ll have to engorge your bed so your toes don’t peek out. Perhaps we’d better keep you outside.”

“Oi! Moony!”

The call comes from some way off, followed by the distinctive sound of the sort of chaos that James Potter leaves in his wake. Sirius hums, and tips his head. “At least you’re easy to find in a crowd, I s’pose.”

Remus shifts his weight, already painfully self-conscious of the fact. Unlike his friends, he’s never been much of one for the limelight. He’s got too many secrets to keep. Back when they’d first decided that he was going to be their friend—he hadn’t had all that much say in the matter—he’d been terrified of the attention they’d bring to him. These days, he’s mostly over it. Still, he’d rather that James or Sirius or Peter were the centre of attention, and more often than not, they’re happy to oblige.

Remus turns to watch James elbow his way through the crowd, not stopping to apologise for ribs jabbed or feet stepped on. He maneuvers a first year out of the way, picking him bodily off the floor and replacing him to one side, earning himself a yelp from the boy in question and an eyeroll from Remus.

When James arrives in front of them, he’s breathless and excited, eyes already dancing with the promise of mischief.

“Thought I’d never find you. D’you think we ever looked that lost and naive? Swear they take them younger every year.” He glances to the side, and his face lights up at the sight of his best friend. “Pads! Didn’t see you through the sweating masses.”

Sirius is _glowering_.

“You too?” he demands. James looks only mildly confused, hand reaching up to sweep through his hair and adjust his glasses. Remus takes stock of the situation.

James has shot up, too. More than Remus, even, though it hadn’t been all that obvious when he’d been wading through the crowd. For one thing, the first years are small enough and nervous enough to make most people look tall in comparison. For another, James is sporting clothes and robes more suited to his newfound height. Unlike Remus, who’s still wearing the same jumper he arrived in last September.

“‘Me too’ what?” James asks. “Good to see you as well, you miserable git.”

“Don’t feel too down,” Remus advises. “I didn’t get much in the way of greeting either. I think someone feels like they drew the _short straw_.” That earns him a shove, but for all the fact that he looks like he could be carried away by a light breeze, Remus is surprisingly strong. His furry little problem takes care of that.

“Wankers,” Sirius pronounces. “I hope the weather is terrible up there.”

Understanding dawns on James’ face, and when he reaches out to ruffle Sirius’ hair—already a cardinal sin, even without this new patronising air that James has adopted—Sirius wastes no time in ducking away and going for James at the waist. Remus doesn’t pay much attention to the scuffle that ensues, far too used to them to do much except smile reassuringly at a few adults glancing their way.

He spots Peter in the crowd before Peter spots him. When Remus lifts his hand to wave, he feels the cool whisper of air against bare skin as his jumper lifts. The fourth and final marauder makes his way over, painstakingly slowly, lacking James’ dedication to the straightest path regardless of the obstacles.

Remus is trying not to laugh as Pete wedges himself in to the group, blowing his too-long hair from his eyes.

Of all four of them, only one hasn’t grown over the summer.

“Well this is just insulting,” Sirius sulks, having broken off from his tussle with James. “Honestly, look at the three of you. All gangly and stretched out. Hideous.” Pete blinks, clueless, and utters what might as well be his famous last words.

“Did Padfoot get smaller over the summer, or is it just me?”

* * *

All the corridors have that start-of-year feeling, jam-packed with faces both new and familiar. The youngest are milling about because they’re uncertain where to go, and the older students are milling about because they’re certain they can squeeze an extra few minutes of freedom before classes start, shouting out to friends and swapping stories of the summer.

Pete is scowling at his timetable like it just insulted his mum, and James and Sirius are busy working out when they’ll be able to make mischief together between classes—or indeed, in them. Remus is pretending not to hear their plans, for the most part. Plausible deniability, and all that.

Eventually, with McGonagall’s voice cutting across the chattering crowds, everyone begins to disperse, ponderously, towards their respective classrooms. Sirius says something under his breath that Remus doesn’t quite catch.

“Hmm?”

That earns him a scowl. It’s an expression that suits Sirius all too well—the imperious tug of his curved lips only serving to accentuate his high cheekbones, the draw of his brows highlighting his dark eyes. He always looks beautiful when he’s pretending to be angry. It’s how you can tell he’s pretending.

Catch him when he’s in a real mood, furious at his parents or at his brother, and his face is twisted by his ire beyond all recognition, like a masterpiece ruined by ugly spills of black paint.

“Outrageous. How am I supposed to whisper sweet nothings in your ear when I can’t reach your ear, Moony?” Sirius demands.

“We could get you a little folding stool,” Pete suggests.

“I could carry you like a baby,” is James’ offering.

“I suppose you’ll just have to find some other way,” Remus says firmly, because if he’s learned anything through all these years of friendship, it’s that Sirius is just about as likely to stick a wet tongue in his ear than whisper anything to him, just to laugh at his reaction. He hoists his bag further up onto his shoulder, and begins to make his way towards charms.

“Remus, my love!"

It’s Sirius’ outside voice—not that he has much of a tendency to make use of anything approaching an inside voice. A few heads turn, and Remus stubbornly ignores the pale, wide-eyed faces of the first years that are looking his way. He sets his shoulders and keeps walking, determined not to give into Sirius’ ridiculousness.

Not this early in the term, at any rate.

“My sun and my moon! O, heart of my heart! The sweetest muffin I’ve ever—oh, hullo, professor. No, I was just letting Remus know how much he means to me. ” Remus speeds up, but can’t help hearing one last snatch of Sirius’ smooth voice before he turns the corner. “You see, he’s a criminally underappreciated fellow—”

* * *

It’s nothing short of raucous in the Gryffindor common room. Remus, who’s only three days out of his monthly hospital bed, is doing his level best to become one with the armchair he’s folded himself into.

It’s not working particularly well. ‘Peace’ and ‘quiet’ are two words he’s quite sure that James and Sirius must understand, on an intellectual level, but there’s some sort of issue that keeps them from processing their meaning in practice.

“D’you reckon Sirius will let me copy his Care of Magical Creatures homework?” Pete asks, casting a doleful and not-particularly-hopeful look in his friend’s direction. Remus, eyes closed and fingers pressed at the bridge of his nose to try and ease his building headache, snorts.

“If Pads put half the effort into avoiding trouble that he does to avoiding homework,” he mutters. It’s not meant to sound cruel, but it does. He’s tired and his bones still ache and the common room is _loud_ , but it’s somehow better than having to be alone with himself in the cocooned silence of the dorm, and that just makes him angrier. When he opens his eyes, Pete is frowning at him.

“He wrote your History of Magic essay on Monday,” Pete says, and then bites at his lip. Remus stares at him, surprised. The conflict on his face is obvious, and Remus wonders whether Sirius had asked him to keep it a secret. He glances over at Sirius—busy leading a gaggle of second-years in a rather raunchy Halloween song of his own devising—and watches the grin on his face and the sweep of his elegant fingers as he pretends at being the conductor of his rag-tag choir.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” Remus relents. “I’m just—”

Remus trails off. _I’m just tired_ loses all meaning, after you’ve said it enough times, and he can sense faint disapproval from Pete even as he shrugs away Remus’ apology. “I’ll ask him,” Pete decides, and leaves Remus to his armchair.

Remus closes his eyes again, feeling rotten through and through. He rubs harder at his eyes until even with them closed, he can see stars.

“They make me feel like that too,” says a dark voice that belongs unmistakably to Lily. “Why is Sirius on the table?”  
  
Remus doesn’t open his eyes, sinks a little further into the cushions in the hope he can escape this unravelling ribbon of guilt. “He likes to feel tall.”

* * *

Remus emerges from History of Magic, staring intently at an essay he didn't write. It's a worryingly good approximation of his hand, and the ‘A’ would sting a bit if he'd written it himself.

But given that Sirius hadn't listened in History of Magic even before he'd dropped the class, it feels close to the best grade he's ever been given. Remus is no stranger to missing homework and dropped grades; his professors are, for the most part, very forgiving. Binns is the exception. Death hadn't stopped him from teaching, so perhaps it's not so surprising that mere ‘illness’ isn't considered a valid excuse in his class.

Remus folds the paper on itself and jams it in his bag. He still can’t work out what to say to Sirius about it. ‘Thank you’ would seem like a sensible place to start, but it doesn’t convey nearly enough. ‘You’re wonderful’ is another unnecessary fan to the flame of Sirius’ ego. ‘I think I’ve been waiting for someone like you my whole, miserable, wolfy life’ seems a little melodramatic.

James flags him down before he can even point himself in the direction of the common room.

“Remus, I need you to do the thing again,” he says, firmly, his hands on Remus’ shoulders as if to keep him from turning and walking away. Remus has a healthy sense of suspicion, nurtured by his friendship with the other marauders, and his eyes narrow.

“I’ve still got that odd-coloured rash from the last time you said that.”

“No, nothing like that, I mean—wait, really? What colour is it? Sirius and I have been looking for some way to turn the Slytherin seeker red to confuse his team.”

Remus sighs a familiar, long-suffering sigh. “James.”

“Right, right. I need you to do the thing where you talk to Sirius.”

Such an innocuous string of words—after all, he talks to Sirius every day—but they send something sluicing through his veins that’s somewhere between concern and panic.

“You know that owl he got at breakfast the other day?” James says, and now his hands drop from Remus’ shoulders to tug awkwardly at his untucked shirt before they’re shoved into his pockets. “From his parents?”

The Black family owl, a regal, black-feathered beast—nothing if not cliche, as Sirius loves to point out—is a common sight over the Slytherin table. Not so much the Gryffindor table, these days. A letter from the parents is one of those careful things they still haven’t figured out how to handle. Sirius is equally likely to gleefully burn one without reading it, right there at the breakfast table, as he is to read it and spend three days in a dark, silent mood.

He’d seemed a little off, after this one, but he’d perked up soon enough.

“I didn’t think it had bothered him much this time,” Remus says. James shrugs a shoulder.

“Don’t think it was the letter itself. Only he went and talked to his brother with it.”

“He talked to Regulus?” Remus asks, unable to hide the surprise from his voice. When the younger Black had first arrived at Hogwarts, Remus had watched Sirius torn between an obvious sense of protection and alienation. But however close the brothers might once have been, Walburga and Orion had done their work in Sirius’ absence, and the snide indifference from Regulus had grounded all fledgling hope of returning to that intimacy.

“Voluntarily,” James confirms, gravely. “Didn’t even call him names. Well—not at first, anyway. Please? He listens to you. I never know what to say.”

 _Of course you don’t_ , Remus thinks, though not unkindly. James is someone for whom everything has always come easily. The only son of kind and doting parents, he’d been raised comfortably and well. He’d flourished at Hogwarts—well-liked, talented, and good-looking as he grew. Remus rather suspects that James—and Peter, come to that—are no good at talking Sirius out of his moods because they’ve never _really_ suffered anything.

“All right,” he relents. “Where is he?”

“Think he went out to brood handsomely by the lake,” James says. And then, as Remus turns to go: “—can I see that rash when you get back?”

Remus flips him off as he leaves.

It’s cold outside, a biting wind creeping underneath Remus’s scarf and scratching at his face. Sure enough, he finds Sirius, quite unconcerned by the cold, standing on a large, flat, rock, and throwing stones down into the water with quite unnecessary force.

From here, it looks like he’s throwing them straight at his own reflection.

“All right, Heathcliff?” he calls out as he approaches. Sirius doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t fall into one of his favourite pastimes of dramatic speeches and hair-tossing. He’d been delighted when Remus had described Heathcliff to him. _My kind of man,_ he’d said, and had been utterly nonplussed when Remus had pointed out that people mostly hated him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sirius says, as Remus gets closer. Remus reaches out to pluck one of the stones from Sirius’ fistful, and tries to skip it across the lake. He gets to two skips before a tentacle rises ever-so-slightly from the water to snatch the pebble down to the green-grey depths.

“Okay,” he agrees. Sirius offers him another stone. This one, Remus simply throws as far as he can, watching the graceful arc of it before it disrupts the smooth, rippling surface of the lake with a scatter of droplets. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“That essay. ‘Acceptable’. Not bad for someone who slept through every other History of Magic class.” For a fraction of a second, there’s a flicker of a smile at Sirius’ lips, before they seem to remember that they’re locked in a scowl.

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t have Binns on your case again. Dead git’s a right tosser.” Sirius cocks his head.

“You’re wonderful,” Remus says, and Sirius’ hunched shoulders ease out a little. “I think I’ve been waiting for someone like you my entire, miserable, wolfy life.”

That does it. Sirius snorts, and scatters all the stones into the water at once, a little hail of _plip-plop_ sounds to punctuate the mournful howl of the wind around them. “All right, Cathy,” he says, and when Remus grins at him, he smiles back. It’s not quite the easy, effortless smile he usually wears, but it’s certainly better than the scowl.

“Come on,” Remus says. “I’m freezing my arse off, and James is worried.”

“About your arse? Well, who wouldn’t be. Scrawny little thing. I can barely sleep some nights, thinking about it.” Remus inexplicably feels his face heating, and files it under ‘thinks to think about some other time that is not now’, thankful for the fact that the cold wind has already whipped his cheeks pink.

“Ha, ha,” he says. “Let’s go.”

He doesn’t make it far before Sirius stops him.

“Come down here,” he demands. “You’ve something on your face.”

In retrospect, Remus will wonder why he so obediently ducked his head, knowing full well that Sirius isn’t exactly a mother hen. Never before has he offered to clean something off someone’s face when the alternative is leave them looking like an idiot without realising it.

For his trouble he gets flicked in the nose—quite hard—and is still blinking in surprise when Sirius hooks a foot around the back of his leg, catching right at the back of Remus’ knee. Remus yelps as his leg crumples.

He might have remained upright, if not for two things. One, he’s leaning forward over Siruis, bending down to compensate for the difference in their heights. Two, Sirius—thrown off-balance by Remus’ shift in weight—clutches at him, only making matters worse. Elegant fingers grasp for stability and find Remus’ scarf instead. Caught between choking and falling, Remus opts for falling, so that they both go down in a tangle of flailing limbs.

Sirius has been complicit in his own downfall, but as he lies on the cold, damp grass, dark hair flicking back and forth across his face in the grip of the playful wind, he’s laughing heartily. He’s still got one leg hooked behind Remus’, and one arm twisted between them, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Maniac,” Remus grumbles, but he’s smiling because Sirius is smiling. When they make it back upright, Sirius pushes himself onto his toes to reach up and pluck a leaf from Remus’ hair. 

* * *

“Remus, my dear! Gosh, haven’t you grown?”

Remus submits to Mrs. Potter’s fussing with a sort of resigned fondness. She’s always concerned about him—too thin, too peaky, too bruised. Remus has that effect on mothers. He’s learned by now that it’s best to get it over with, and to just eat up all the seconds he’s given without asking.

“It’s a conspiracy,” Sirius announces from behind him. “Got to be. Whatever you’re putting in their food, I want some.”

Sirius is swept up, then, in Euphemia’s whirlwind of maternal affection. He gives as good as he gets, too, landing a smacking great kiss on her cheek and declaring, grave and grandiose, that she looks more beautiful every time he sees her. She favours him with the smile of a much younger woman, tutting over his flattery but smiling nonetheless.

That’s the effect that _Sirius_ has on mothers. And most other people.

Peter is smothered next, and the look on his face is enough to make Sirius bark out a laugh. Pete’s mum is notoriously fussy. Remus can almost see the traumatic flashbacks reflected in Peter’s eyes.

“Mum,” James says, sternly. “If you’re quite done suffocating my friends. We’ve got stuff to do.”

“Stay out of trouble,” is all she says in reply, finally releasing Peter, who scrambles past James and out of reach of any further fussing. James’ grin suggests their plans dictate otherwise, and he shoves Peter up the stairs, towards his bedroom.

Sirius lingers for a moment, and Remus hesitates before following James, just long enough to hear his friend’s aside to Mrs. Potter.

“No, seriously though. What _are_ you putting in his food?”

With a roll of his eyes, Remus reaches back and grabs Sirius’ hand and begins towing him up the stairs. Sirius doesn’t give up, even as he stumbles on the stairs, twisting back around to continue his pleading to an amused Mrs. Potter.

“Skele-grow in his porridge? Growth charms before bed? I need to know, Euphemia! _I need to know!_ ” 

* * *

Later, Remus will look back on that moment and wonder if that’s where Sirius got the idea.

They’re no strangers to a folding cauldron and pilfered potions ingredients, illicit brewings in dimly-lit and out-of-the-way corridors that nobody really visits anymore. Usually, though, they at least all know what they’re doing. Today, the whole thing is a bit of a mystery.

“I told you that the house elves won’t let the Slytherin’s pumpkin juice get spiked with anything before it’s sent up to the Great Hall,” Remus points out. Sirius waves a dismissive hand.

“Moony, this is far more important than a mere hiccoughing potion.” Remus narrows his eyes at that; two days ago, the hiccoughing potion was the most important thing in Sirius’ world. He watches Sirius scrape something into the cauldron that might be sliced adder’s tongue, or perhaps lionfish spines.

Remus is hopeless at potions. Even if he could recognise the ingredients that Sirius was using, he’d be hard-pressed to take a guess at what he was up to. It’s Peter who figures it out, and the second he does, he starts laughing so hard that he almost tips over into the wall.

Remus and James exchange glances, but once Pete is gone, it’s almost impossible to get anything out of him. James leans over the cauldron to observe the sludgy, dark-amber concoction inside.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” he asks, doubtfully.

“Probably,” Sirius says, cheerfully, and before Remus suggests that maybe they should be more certain than ‘probably’ before anyone drinks it, Sirius has scooped some out with a cup and drained it, smacking his lips obnoxiously and wrinkling his nose at the taste.

“Fizzy,” he remarks, and then his face sort of distorts and stretches out, and Remus is scrabbling to get next to him and Peter is still laughing, and James is looking bewildered and somewhat afraid.

By the time they get Sirius to the hospital wing, he’s over eight feet tall, all stretched out and slightly translucent, like he’s been painted onto the air in washed-out watercolours. His movements are bizarrely slow, like he’s underwater, or he doesn’t weigh quite enough. Other than that, he seems perfectly content.

“Nice view from up here,” he says, as he sort of walk-drifts along. “Could get used to it. Oh, good evening, Poppy.”

Madam Pomfrey’s cry of ‘oh, Mr. _Black!_ ’ is a sentiment that’s clearly reflected in Remus’ face. Peter is still laughing. James is sniggering too. Sirius is explaining that he _might_ not have done the best job at memorising the recipe for the extending potion that he’d found.

By the time he’s back to his normal size, Remus is tired and grumpy and would just like to go to bed.

“Why does it even matter, anyway?” he demands, exasperated.

“Yeah,” James agrees, slinging an arm over Sirius’ shoulders (and leaning down to do so). “We’re all the same height lying down, right?”

Sirius shoves James into a wall. “As if I’d ever want to sleep with you, you absolute pansy.”

“It’s okay, Sirius,” James says, soothingly, wrapping his arms around Sirius even as the shorter boy struggles to break free of the encompassing embrace. “You might be small, but you’ve got a big _heart._ ”

“Not as big as my—”

Remus walks away, resisting the urge to massage the oncoming headache from his temples.

* * *

 “I heard Rolanda Whisp sighing over you at lunch,” James says, matter-of-factly, tossing his bag into the corner of the common room and sprawling himself across the sofa. Sirius hums disinterestedly. “You should ask her to go to Hogsmeade with you.”

“Why would I do that?” Sirius asks, as if the answer is obvious. “She’s eighty-four miles taller than me.” In the armchair, Remus’ lips curl into a faint smile at the hyperbole. Rolanda has half an inch on Sirius, if that.

“I could give you a piggyback,” Peter suggests. “Sorted. I’ll keep quiet.”

“Fuck off, you nonce,” Sirius says, and throws a pillow at him. That’s that; they go to Hogsmeade together, like they always do—after James gets turned down by Lily, like he always does. 

* * *

 Their years of sneaking into the hospital wing to visit Remus have made them cocky.

In combination with the fact that fitting three of them under the invisibility cloak is nigh on impossible these days, it was really only a matter of time before this happened.

‘This’ being a panic of flailing limbs as they push past each other to find somewhere to hide from the brisk approaching footsteps of Madame Pomfrey, alerted by some careless noise. The hospital wing is large, and open, and there’s really not many options.

“We could jump out of the window!” Pete hisses in a low and desperate whisper.

“Oh, great idea,” James retorts, voice not as low as Sirius would like. “Then Pomfrey can levitate us right back up to fix all our broken bones.” The outer door opens, and they’re only seconds from getting caught right here, out in the middle of the room, like startled rabbits. James whirls round, and pulls open a squat cupboard.

“Padfoot, you stay,” he whispers, thrusting the cloak at Sirius. “You’re the—”

“—don’t you dare, Potter—”

“—smallest.”

He growls, half-tempted to tackle James to the floor and to hell with Pomfrey. But if they all get dragged out by the ear, then Remus will wake up alone, and Sirius hates the thought of that. He wedges himself backwards into the cupboard, squeezing in amongst mops and brooms and buckets.

“I swear to Merlin, I will not let this go that eas—”

The door closes, leaving him tangled up with the darkness. He’s pressed up against the wall and balancing on one leg, the other precariously holding a teetering pile of bedsheets in place.

“ _Mr Potter? What are you doing here?”_ comes Madam Pomfrey’s voice, filtering muffled through the walls of the cupboard. Sirius holds his breath as he hears James’ serious tones — _" I was just worried about him, couldn’t sleep"_ —and doesn’t quite catch Pomfrey’s reply. Her tone sounds stern but perhaps a little gentler than he’d expected. The soft spot is for Remus and not for James, but association is enough to lend him a lesser rebuke, at least.

He can’t hear Pete. Doubtless he’s crouched under the cloak somewhere, scuttling out of the door. Too risky to try and cram them both under it when a flash of ankles is all it’ll take to get it confiscated from them.

James plays his part masterfully, as always, and is sent away with instructions to return tomorrow, ‘when Mr. Lupin is feeling better’, and a stern warning that next time he’s caught in here after lights out, house points will be deducted. Sirius suspects she’s realised that they know about Moony’s furry little problem. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t realise that at least one of them has spent the night after each of Remus’ transformation in the hospital wing with him.

Pomfrey leaves after James. Sirius waits a minute, counting out the seconds in his head, and then another minute just in case. After that, he gets cramp behind his knee and decides that he’s hidden long enough.

Pushing the door open causes a mop to start a ponderous topple towards the ground; Sirius lunges for it to keep it from clattering across the floor, only to send the pile of bedsheets flying and himself sprawling out after them. At least it’s a soft (and quiet, as far as these things go) landing.

“Pads?” Remus’ voice is quiet and a little woozy, an edge of confusion to it. Sirius—spread-eagled on his back across a mess of bedsheets, mop clutched to his chest—tips his head up to see Remus sitting up in bed and looking at him. “Why’re you in the cupboard?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he says. “D’you need any more sheets?”

“This is why it’s nice that you’re small,” Remus murmurs later, when Sirius is squashed into the narrow bed alongside him, like they did sometimes when they were twelve. It’s precarious at best. James or Peter would be on the floor, by now, if they’d tried it.

“Well I’m glad there’s one silver lining,” Sirius grouses, but there’s no real heat behind it. He fits quite nicely here, tucked up against Remus’ side, with his head resting on the taller boy’s shoulder. They fall asleep like that, though Sirius doesn’t mean to, and when he wakes to light streaming through the tall windows, he thinks _yeah, okay, this is nice._

* * *

“—this is the _last straw._ ”

Sirius storms into the dorm, flinging his bag to one side without caring that his belongings spill out from it as it lands, a mess of quills and scraps of paper and books and all sorts of rubbish.

Remus’ shoulders tense. Sirius’ face is dark, and he’s tugging at his hair, a sign of real distress. James sits up from his quidditch magazine and exchanges a look with Remus; they’re used to Sirius’ occasional dark moods by now. They seem to be more common, recently, and they both know perfectly well that there’s only a narrow window to pull him out of it before he sinks into a huff for a day or more.

“Er,” James says. Remus rolls his eyes at his friend’s abortive attempt to find something supportive to say.

“I mean,” Sirius continues, turning on James anyway, the sound enough to draw his attention. “What did I do to deserve _that_ as a brother?”

This, at least, is familiar territory.

“The slimy little traitor has always had it out for me. Ever since dear ol’ mum convinced him that I’d _shamed the family._ Smarmy git wants to prove he’s better than me. Well, now it’s personal! James, get your wand. We’re going to go and dangle him out of a window by his ankle until he cries.”

James reaches for his wand without a word, until a withering look from Remus stops him in his tracks, and he clears his throat instead, pretending that he’d just been stretching his arm. Unconvincingly.

“I doubt turning him upside-down and shoving him out of a window will solve much,” Remus says, always the voice of reason. “What’d he do?”

Of course, if pressed, he’ll give in. Sirius is a force of nature; almost impossible to deny, and there are days where even gentle Remus harbours a black anger in him at the way his family treats him. He deserves better, for all his faults.

Sirius turns on his heel to face Remus, and throws his hands up dramatically. His answer is almost a wail, a cry of despair.

“He _grew!_ ”

Annoyance and relief and amusement all war across Remus’ face before he just shakes his head and returns to his book. James is pretending, very poorly, not to laugh. Sirius is stamping his foot like a little child and demanding vengeance.

Remus magnanimously pretends not to notice the underhanded hexes Sirius sends in his brother’s direction for the next week. 

* * *

Remus Lupin has a problem.

Actually, he’s got several, ranging from the _furry little_ kind to the _missing quill_ kind. But this problem in particular, the one that’s got him staring at the canopy of his bed with a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, is about five foot four, and asleep in the next bed over.

The thing about Sirius is that his effusive affection is handed out to all of his friends in equal measures. Much like his animagus form, Sirius likes attention and craves physical intimacy. So the fact that Remus has woken up from his last three visits to the hospital wing with Sirius curled up at his side isn’t surprising.

Neither is the fact that Sirius has taken to shoving James off the sofa so that he can lie with his head in Remus’ lap, or the way that he sprawls across Remus in the mornings to wake him up.

What _is_ surprising is the way that Remus’ traitorous body reacts to all these things that ought to be normal to him, by now. Butterflies and shivers and a stupid warm feeling in the tips of his fingers that he can’t shake out no matter how hard he tries.

It’s been months now, and if anything, it’s only getting worse. He’s wondering whether he should cloister himself away somewhere, or take to roaming the high moors around Hogwarts, and then decides that’s far too dramatic and impractical. It’s also something that Sirius would suggest.

Remus scrubs at his face with a groan, fingers dragging down across his features before falling to his side, defeated.

Fine. What would Sirius do, in this situation?

Sirius would, of course, handle it with and almost sickening grace, a smoothness that Remus could never hope to emulate. He’d be utterly confident of his success, and even if he failed it would be with such charm that he’d laugh it off without a problem.

Remus rolls over to peer across to Sirius’ bed in the pre-dawn dimness. He’s face down, one arm dangling off the edge of his bed. His mouth is open. He’s snoring. He’s possibly drooling a bit. He’s beautiful.

Levering himself out of bed, Remus pads barefoot across the floor and eases the door open quietly. Waking anyone up before eight on a Saturday is a cardinal sin, and besides, he needs some time to himself. A rarity, to say the least.

The common room is empty. He drags one of the armchairs over to the window and nestles into it, drawing his knees up to his chest and watching as grey darkness of night is torn away by the determined fingers of dawn. He’s just settled into a lazy half-daydream about waking up with a head tucked up against his neck when Sirius’ voice, still rough with sleep, startles him out of it again.

“You all right, Moony?”

Remus can feel heat rising on his cheeks. “What? Yes. Fine. Why?”

Sirius pauses, and narrows his eyes at his friend. Remus fidgets in his seat until he catches himself doing it, then freezes clears his throat. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of his facial expression, and not sure what to do with it.

“Well I _was_ just asking ‘cause you were up early, but this,” he makes a curt gesture that somehow encompasses Remus’ entire existence, “is deeply suspicious.”

Sirius gets that look on his face. The one that’s all mischief and determination, and Remus knows he’s done for. Sirius strides towards him, and he almost trips over himself in an attempt to get upright, to get out of the chair—partly because he feels an awful lot like he’s being cornered, and partly because he has this horrific-slash-heavenly picture in his head of Sirius flopping down into lap, and he’s just not sure he can handle that right now.

“Don’t be stupid,” Remus says, attempting a light tone that sounds a little too pleading to be convincing.

“What’s going on, Mr. Lupin?” Sirius demands, and there’s a salacious note to his words that only ratchets Remus’ panic another notch higher. “Have you got a girl down here? You have, haven’t you? You’ve been having a torrid, early-morning affair, and you’ve kept all of us in the dark about it.”

Sirius is awfully close now, reaching out to punctuate his accusations with a finger poked into Remus’ chest. “No,” he says, more defensively than he means to. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous. You’re an eligible bachelor.”

“I’m nothing of the sort!”

“Always so modest. Where is she then? Hiding behind the sofa?”

It’s a joke, just like it always is with Sirius, all of the time, but his presence has thrown Remus off so much that he can barely think three seconds ahead to what he’s saying. He takes Sirius by the shoulders, firmly, and pushes him backwards. Sirius lets himself be pushed, but doesn’t stop grinning up at Remus from beneath his bed-mess of dark hair.

( _Beautiful,_ Remus thinks, unbidden, and drops his hands from Sirius as though burned.)

“There's no one else down here,” Remus says. “ _Certainly_ not any girls.”

“Why d’you have to sound so disapproving?” Sirius asks, reproachfully. Remus thinks it’s rather a hypocritical question; despite his handsome face and perfect hair and unfairly smooth transition into puberty, barring except perhaps not budging an inch upwards all year, Sirius has never been very interested in girls. Even when they’re clearly interested in him. “Nothing wrong with a good snog before breakfast, Moony.”

“I have not been snogging any girls.”

“Well, why not? Maybe you should.”

Exasperation and nervous energy have wound Remus up in tight knots. So when his lips and tongue frame the frustrated words “maybe because I can’t stop thinking about _you_ ,” his brain doesn’t catch up with them for a good three or four seconds. Too late to make a joke of it.

There’s a long moment of silence.

Sirius is still standing close to him—close enough to reach out and touch. His clear grey eyes are almost unreadable, but they’re focused on Remus with such intensity that he thinks he might be having trouble breathing. Then again, maybe he’s just ceased to exist altogether; it’s hard to tell.

There’s the slightest of movements, like Sirius is going to lean in and kiss him. Remus’ fingers curl in on his palms in nervous anticipation, and he’s sure his heart is hammering fit to break the circle of his ribs.

And then Sirius turns on his heel, and walks away.

Remus watches him trot back up the stairs to the dorm in disbelief. The bottom of his stomach has fallen out, and there’s all sorts of emotions falling with it: hurt and terror and confusion and regret. He blinks away sudden tears and swallows hard against them.

 _Stupid_. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He wants to blame Sirius—his stupid beautiful face and his stupid beautiful voice and his knack for leaving Remus not quite able to catch up with himself—but he can’t. This is all his fault, for letting his mouth run away with itself.

He hasn’t even got a jumper on over his pyjamas but he ducks through the portrait hole anyway. He wraps his arms around himself and ignores the fat lady’s comments about early birds being the first to get the worm.

He’s not even sure where he’s going. Just _away._ He really will have to go and live on the moors. There’s no way he can face Sirius after this, and even if he apologises for it, Sirius will still _know_. No more waking up with Sirius tucked against his side, no more casual hugs or touches. No more Sirius.

Remus feels sick.

He wanders a short way along the corridor before he hoists himself onto a windowsill and sits with his head in his hands.

For the second time today, it’s Sirius’ voice that pulls him from his reverie.

“Oi,” Sirius says, stomping along the corridor, and Remus stares at him bleakly. He notices that, bizarrely, Sirius has chased him along the corridor with a chunky book under one arm. A closer glance reveals it to be _A Chronological History of the Goblin Rebellions._ Is he going to beat Remus around the head with it? Surely not.

A weak laugh is chased from Remus’ lips as the mildly hysterical thought that of all the times for Sirius to decide to read a textbook, now is possibly the worst of them. Remus slips from the windowsill and holds his hands up in what he hopes is a placating gesture.

“Look,” he says, not even sure what he can say to salvage the situation, but he’s interrupted by Sirius.

“Where’d you go?” Sirius drops the book to floor with an echoing _thunk!_ , right at Remus’ feet, and Remus’s poor, short-circuited brain just can’t work out what’s going on at all. Then Sirius steps up onto the book. “We going to kiss, or what? Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

Remus looks at Sirius, only a couple of inches shorter than him now, and then down at the book, and then back up at Sirius’ face.

“You wanker,” Remus says, in a tone of complete calm. “You absolute, utter, _short-arsed_ wanker.”

And then—somewhere between Sirius’ offended noise and Remus’ wild-edged laughter, they’re kissing. Sirius’ hair is soft when Remus runs his fingers through it, and the strip of skin that’s bared when Sirius pushes himself up onto his tiptoes is hot to the touch.

“Are you just going to—carry that thing around?” Remus murmurs when their lips break apart. Sirius grins, a wide and lazy thing that ignites a spark somewhere in Remus’ spine, and shrugs a shoulder.

“You’re right, seems like a lot of effort. I’ll make James do it.”

Remus doesn’t even care to argue; lips reclaim lips, and the whole morning goes on just as absurdly as it began, with Sirius and a textbook and the morning light streaming through the stained glass to spill coloured patterns across the floor.

* * *

The table shudders when Sirius drops a book on it. _Around the World in Three Hundred Potions._ James stares at it, utterly perplexed. Remus almost spits out his orange juice, and Peter reaches out to rap on the cover suspiciously, as though suspecting it to be a clever disguise for something else.

“What the hell’s that for?” James asks.

“Oh, just some light reading,” Sirius replies, all sweet and innocent and absolutely not looking at Remus, who can feel the tips of his ears reddening and focuses on eating his eggs with a single-minded determination. “You know how it is. Knowledge can raise you up to great heights. Wouldn’t mind carrying it, would you? Only your arms are longer than mine.”

Remus focuses even harder on his eggs, smile scrabbling at the corner of his mouth to be freed. Beneath the table, short as they may be, Sirius’ legs tangle with his own.

Later, they’ll tell James and Pete, or maybe just let them realise and laugh at the looks on their faces when they catch on. For now, with the soft hubbub of breakfast around them and the promise of a warm weekend to themselves, Remus doesn’t feel the need.

       For now, Sirius can be his (little) secret.


End file.
